Politics

“Hatred is a powerful motivator. . .”

-Margaret Cho

(via Jeff Goldstein)

It appears Norman Mineta will remain Secretary of Transportation. Bummer.

It’s such a typical Bush deal, the kind that drives his base nuts: he won’t spend political capital on inessential issues unless he has no other choice (for another example, see: “assault weapons ban” repeal). The downside is, the base is annoyed. But what are they going to do? The upside: W avoids momentum-draining political fights on highly symbolic secondary issues.

Previous post here.

In the last election, the Democrats had exactly what they said they needed to win. They spent more money per candidate than the Republicans in the Presidential and Senate races, they managed to motivate youthful voters in great numbers, and the national media was so biased that they were actually willing to fight for an obvious fraud if it meant damaging the Republicans.

Yet they still lost the Presidential election, as well as some more seats in both the House and the Senate.

I think one of the main reasons for this incredibly poor showing were the loud, bitter groups that the Democrats courted as a big part of their support. I think most Conservatives would agree with that.

I just came across this news item, which reports that MoveOn.org, the odious Left-wing organization that saw nothing wrong with comparing Bush with Hitler, is trying to re-invent itself.

How are they going to survive after they’ve failed so completely in getting their candidate elected? By expanding the list of issues that they want to become involved with. (The article is very well written, and should be read all the way through.)

I was very curious to see how the mid-term elections were going to come out in 2006. If the Democrats didn’t change their message (Republicans are murdering Fascists), and if they didn’t change the way they presented it (BUSHITLER!), then I figured that they were going to lose even more seats in Congress.

But if MoveOn manages to expand and keep at the forefront of Democratic politics, then I don’t have any doubt as to the outcome.

UPDATE
Fellow Columbus, Ohio blogger Citizen Keith has sent me an Email, pointing out that the ads which compared Bush to Hitler weren’t endorsed by MoveOn.org. Instead they were merely two of 1,500 ads that were submitted and placed on MoveOn’s website during a contest , and they were removed due to complaints. So far, MoveOn hasn’t ever directly compared Bush to Hitler.

This news item says that the US State Department has endorsed the Senate probe of the Oil for Food scandel.

I’m uncertain what this means since I didn’t think that the Senate needed approval to investigate something. It would appear that it’s an indication of approval instead of a formal go-ahead, sort of like an athlete who endorses a product that they don’t really use. (“I’m not a Senator, but I pretend to be one in my office at Foggy Bottom!”) If this is so, then I suppose it’s a message that no one from State will try and obstruct the investigation.

Maybe the authors of The Diplomad can clear this up for me.

Via Instapundit comes a link to Hayden’s advice on how to get the U.S. to abandon Iraq.

Hayden doesn’t actually use the term “abandon Iraq” — his essay is titled, “How to End the Iraq War” — but his meaning is clear to anyone who knows the code. For everyone else there’s this paragraph, which removes any doubt:

The important thing is for anti-war activists to become more grounded in the everyday political life of their districts, organizing anti-war coalitions including clergy, labor and inner city representatives to knock loudly on congressional doors and demand that the $200 billion squandered on Iraq go to infrastructure and schools at home. When trapped between imperial elites and their own insistent constituents, members of Congress will tend to side with their voters. That is how the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia were ended in 1975.

Got that? What happened in South Vietnam and Cambodia — concentration camps, boat people, genocide, continued war — after the U.S. cut and ran is of no importance. The fact that the post-war horrors might have been averted if the Congress, empowered by the post-Watergate Democratic landslide in the 1974 elections, hadn’t denied further aid to South Vietnam, is of no importance. All that matters is that our war ended, and that people like Hayden helped to thwart U.S. policy. High five, dude! What a great victory for the cause.

In Hayden’s view it’s always about the U.S., because the Left sees the U.S. as a destructive force in international affairs. If only U.S. actions were blocked, then things would be better. Needless to say, the only way to hold such a view over a long period of time is to ignore most of what happens in the rest of the world. But hey, movement politics are so much more interesting and meaningful than world history.

Remember that, the next time some lefty panjandrum dispenses political advice or tells Americans that they don’t care enough about what happens in other countries.